Matthew Kneale – författare

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWaterstone's Book of the Month, 2018Nominated for the 2017 Pen Hessell-TiltmanMail on Sunday's the Best Paperback, 2018A sweeping history of the city of Rome, seen through the eyes of its most significant sackings, from the Gauls to the Nazis and everything in between.No city on earth has preserved its past as Rome has. Visitors can cross bridges that were crossed by Julius Caesar and explore temples visited by Roman emperors. These architectural survivals are all the more remarkable considering the city has been repeatedly ravaged by roving armies.From the Gauls to the Nazis, Matthew Kneale tells the stories behind the seven most important of these attacks and reveals, with fascinating insight, how they transformed the city - and not always for the worse. A meticulously researched, magical blend of travelogue, social and cultural history, Rome: A History in Seven Sackings is a celebration of the fierce courage, panache and vitality of the Roman people. Most of all, it is a passionate love letter to this incomparable city.

WINNER – WHITBREAD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2000The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson sets out from England, in the summer of 1857, with an expedition to find the Garden of Eden, which he is convinced lies on the island of Tasmania. Unknown to him, others in the party have very different agendas, notably the surgeon, Dr Potter, who is developing a revolutionary and sinister thesis of his own on the races of man. To complicate matters further, the ship Wilson has hurriedly chartered, crewed by Captain Kewley and his secretive Manxmen, is in fact an ill-starred smuggling vessel, its hidden compartments filled with contraband brandy and tobacco. As the vessel journeys haplessly southwards, in Tasmania itself an Aboriginal named Peevay recounts his people’s struggle against the invading British, who prove as lethal in their good intentions as in their cruelty. This is no Eden but a world of hunting parties and colonial ethnic cleansing. As the English passengers near Peevay’s land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, it grows clear that a mighty collision is approaching.

An electrifying modern classic - Kneale's sweeping adventure story vividly brings a past age to lifeWINNER OF THE WHITBREAD BOOK AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE In 1857 when Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of rum smugglers from the Isle of Man have most of their contraband confiscated by British Customs, they are forced to put their ship up for charter. The only takers are two eccentric Englishmen who want to embark for the other side of the globe. The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson believes the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania. His travelling partner, Dr. Thomas Potter, unbeknownst to Wilson, is developing a sinister thesis about the races of men. Meanwhile, an aboriginal in Tasmania named Peevay recounts his people's struggles against the invading British. 'Deeply impressive. . . Every page fizzes with linguistic invention' Guardian 'A big, ambitious novel with a rich historical sweep and a host of narrative voices . . . The sort of novel that few contemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain' Daily Telegraph

Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man in his family, watching protectively over his mother and his wilful little sister Jemima. When the three of them suddenly move to Rome it seems at first to be a great adventure: a long drive through the night to the city of popes and emperors. But as his mother's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, and the threat that had forced them to Italy seems to have followed them there, Lawrence's excitement at his new surroundings gives way to something far harder to endure.Told in the engaging voice of Lawrence, this haunting psychological novel powerfully evokes all the feelings of childhood - the triumphs, the jealousies, the fears, the possessions, and most of all, the love.'Heartbreakingly moving . . . Full of restraint and artistic integrity, this is a poignant, haunting and lovely novel' Joanna Briscoe, Guardian 'The road trip is narrated by Lawrence with insight, humour and sweetly erratic spelling . . . The fragility of a family is sensed beautifully' Financial Times'I believed in Lawrence as a character. His voice is skilfully realised, to the extent that I felt I could actually hear it . . . I cried at the end' Irish Times

What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits? And why has belief thrived ever since, leading us to invent heaven and hell, sin and redemption, and above all, gods?Religion reflects our deepest hopes and fears; whether you are a believer or, like Matthew Kneale, a non-believer who admires mankind's capacity to create and to imagine, it has shaped our world. And as our dreams and nightmares have changed over the millennia, so have our beliefs - from shamans to Aztec priests, from Buddhists to Christians: the gods we created have evolved with us. Belief is humanity's most epic invention. It has always been our closest companion and greatest consolation. To understand it is to better understand ourselves.

No city tells the story of human ambition, folly and resilience quite like Rome.Few cities wear their history so openly as Rome: walking its streets, you step between millennia, from ancient forums to Renaissance piazzas, Baroque fountains to the bleak constructions of Mussolinis Fascist regime. Nowhere else do we have such a continuous picture of how a city evolved and how its people lived across two and a half thousand years.In The Shortest History of Rome, Matthew Kneale explores how a group of hill settlements grew to become the capital of the ancient world and then reinvented itself as the spiritual capital of Christendom, before enduring the tumult of the twentieth century. No city has been reborn so many times. Sacked by Visigoths, rebuilt by popes, occupied by Napoleon, and eventually the capital of a unified Italy Rome has outlasted every force that sought to define or destroy it.Veering from the heroic to the tragicomic, Romes history illuminates the history of humanity itself.Matthew Kneale has produced the perfect guide for anyone trying to make sense of the multi-layered history and archaeology of Rome. Lucid, lively and deeply informed, it gives us Romes monuments, historical stratifications and dazzling personalities emperors, popes and artists with intelligence and infectious enthusiasm. Ross King, author of The Shortest History of Italy and The Shortest History of Ancient Rome

A The Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year'An enthralling and wonderfully vivid novel from a master storyteller' Joseph O'Connor'Kneale's medieval world is animated with a refreshing lightness of touch' Sunday Telegraph1289. A rich farmer fears he'll go to hell for cheating his neighbours. His wife wants pilgrim badges to sew into her hat and show off at church. A poor, ragged villager is convinced his beloved cat is suffering in the fires of purgatory and must be rescued. A mother believes her son's dangerous illness is punishment for her own adultery and seeks forgiveness so he may be cured. A landlord is in trouble with the church after he punched an abbot on the nose. A sexually driven noblewoman seeks a divorce so she can marry her new young beau.These are among a ragtag band of pilgrims that sets off on the tough and dangerous journey from England to Rome, where they hope all their troubles and their prayers will be answered. Some in the group, however, have their own secret reasons for going. Others, while they might aspire to piety, succumb all too often to the sins of the flesh. A riveting, sweeping novel of medieval society and historic Englishness, Pilgrims illuminates the fallibility of humans, the absurdities and consolations of belief, and the very real violence at the heart of religious fervour.

In the summer of 1849, cholera threatens the city and the people of London. The authorities send millions of gallons of sewage cascading into the Thames - for many Londoners the only source of drinking water. Joshua Jeavons, a young and idealistic engineer, embarks on an obsessive quest to find the cause of the epidemic. As he labours in a fog of incomprehension, his domestic life is troubled by the baffling coldness of his beautiful bride, Isobella. But when she suddenly disappears, his desperate search for her takes him to a netherworld of slum-dwellers, pickpockets and scavengers of subterranean London.

A warm and affectionate portrait of a city and a people under lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis, from the award-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of Rome: A History in Seven Sackings.

On the first morning of Rome's Covid-19 lockdown Matthew Kneale felt an urge to connect with friends and acquaintances and began writing an email, describing where he was, what was happening and what it felt like, and sent it to everyone he could think of. He was soon composing daily reports as he tried to comprehend a period of time, when everyone's lives suddenly changed and Italy struggled against an epidemic, that was so strange, so troubling and so fascinating that he found it impossible to think about anything else. Having lived in Rome for eighteen years, Matthew has grown to know the capital and its citizens well and this collection of brilliant diary pieces connects what he has learned about the city with this extraordinary, anxious moment, revealing the Romans through the intense prism of the coronavirus crisis.

A captivating, thought-provoking road trip through a rapidly changing Europe in the 1930s from the award-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of Sweet Thames and Rome: A History in Seven Sackings.